Developer Diary #8 - Major Milestone
This week marks a major milestone in our development goals for OwlGaming V. Closed beta testing is about to begin with administrators, faction leaders, and certain VIP community members to ensure the script is as bug-free as possible and we have a wide array of features by the time we launch, assuring as smooth a release as possible so everyone can have quality roleplay on day one.
This transition from alpha to beta has been a meticulous process, which explains the lack of recent Development Diaries, which have only showcased a small portion of what has been worked on thus far. We expect a reduced amount of diaries going forward towards the full public launch.
Media Showcase
Drunk Daniels
SWAT hunting down a high risk person
Cruiser Gathering Dirt
Character Selection / Preview
Deputy on Patrol
Deputy on Patrol
Shootout with an armed suspect (ThatGuy)
Patrolling with ThatGuy
Patrolling
Accessing vehicle trunk
Armed suspect vehicle pursuit
Creepy Angry Passenger
SWAT Gas
SWAT Gas
SWAT Riot
World Items
Special Thanks to the staff
As always, the UAT has been awesome in helping us test new features.
A special thanks to @ThatGuy who has been playing the server >= 8 hours per day to help us test features. We'll buy him a beer later.
As always, feel free to reach out to us below or via Discord with any questions, concerns, ideas, etc.
Stay tuned for future updates!

Time for another OwlGaming V Developer Diary! This one has enough media to kill your browser.
Be sure to tick "HD" on the video player settings if you want to watch in high quality.
Chatbox
We implemented a new chatbox. The new chatbox lets you customize many elements including:
Number of chat lines
Number of chat tabs
Display name of each chat tab
Filter which types of messages are shown in each tab to help reduce spam and improve readability so you can focus more on your RP
Inactive tabs show how many unread messages you have so you can be sure not to miss anything!
Check out the video below to see the new chatbox in action. Note that the settings page design is still a WIP.
Achievements
We are introducing an achievement system for V which rewards players in a purely cosmetic fashion for actions performed in game and progression made throughout their time spent on Owl.
These achievements do not impact game play in anyway and achievements points can not be spent on any in game item or content. They are purely an OOC progression system.
We're interested to hear what you think about this, so please give us feedback below.
Police Radar
Police cruisers now include a radar system which reads the license plate of the vehicle in front and within range, as well as the speed. This system also allows the officer to easily run an MDC check on the plate when driving behind a vehicle.
Officers are also able to manually position a trigger zone for the speed/plate detector rather than using the automated one, enabling officers to perform speed traps.
Below is a screenshot of the system during development to show how we pick a target for the automated system. Check out the beta screenshots below for more examples of this system, including speed traps.
Duty System & Clothing Stores
Clothing stores have been added, allowing players to change their clothes on both premade characters and custom skins.
We also added support for skin customization with regards to Duty skins, for all government factions. Check out examples of the cool uniforms you can create below:
UAT Extended Beta
We've been hosting larger 'everyone on' beta test periods, similar to how we schedule UAT meetings. These sessions involve getting the entire UAT and V Development Team on to both RP and perform non-RP actions to try and break things / find bugs as well as determining how suitable the script is for roleplay.
This test went well. We found a couple of bugs which have since been resolved and overall we were impressed with the stability of both the script and the modification itself.
Now for the fun...
Character selection
Character selection preview
CKed character preview
Achievement list
Unlocking an Achievement
Fighting with a suspect
We pulled out the tank for this one... but he sort of caught himself for us...
Rocket cars - this needs no description (NOTE: these won't be available at your local car store, sorry)
Buying an Ammunation, complete with a Realtor sign
Stunting with a rocket car and backhoe
Police ASU taking off
Duty skin
Running a speed trap with ThatGuy
Music Festival (and an example of notifications)
The latest PD vehicle purchase...
Traffic stop
An Ode to GTA San Andreas
Pulling out the big guns for this felon
A visit to the Sheriffs dept
RIP, the first CK of Owl V
Worst Uber driver ever
Catching a ride
Arresting ThatGuy with $10 bail
Ticketing
Group fire fighting
Hoverbikes and chases
Using the police searchlight
Our player list
Out on patrol
Outtakes
When we script a lot, we end up with a few funny bugs along the way:
This dog is pretty dank with his backpack and M4
Gingerbread men
With our new item system, you have to carry your weed on your genitals
Got skills in Mapping ?
We are hiring mappers for GTA V. This is your chance to have a direct impact on the project and make your mark. Reach out to me on the forums or on Discord to find out more information!
Special Thanks to the staff
As always, the UAT has been awesome in helping us test new features.
A special thanks to @Chaos and @Eloquent for their efforts in scripting the above.
As always, feel free to reach out to us below or via Discord with any questions, concerns, ideas, etc.
Thanks for taking the time to read the developer diary and we look forward to making OwlGaming the number one place to roleplay in both GTA V and MTA.

Not all interiors are fluent, V has a bunch of non-fluent ones (e.g. online apartments). So basically, if it's a 'fluent' (or world interior as we call it), e.g. 24-7 or ammunation - you just walk in. Otherwise you'll use a teleport marker like MTA. World interiors still have markers, used purely for purchasing, no interaction is required to enter.
The above lets us spawn as many interiors as we want, regardless of the amount of fluent interiors.
Mapping is supported on GTA V. We have mapping support in Owl V currently - but not automated yet, like on MTA.
I totally agree Super stoked for weapon mods.

Being strictly voice RP adds in additional barriers for players. What about those without a headset? What if I can't use my headset at home 24/7? What if I want to RP at work on my lunch break? I'd also argue that using voice doesn't necessarily make 'gameplay more fluid' since you throw in a bunch of extra complexities such as language & accents.
Aside from that, voice vs text isn't what I meant when I wrote that paragraph - it was referring to the interaction with server objects (e.g. stores) and reducing the dependency on mastering commands.
Anti-cheat.

Rage currently supports up to 1000 players. The largest server - a German language voice RP server - currently has 300-350 players on at any one time.
Glad to hear you're excited for the project!
We don't plan to have heavy things like custom car models etc. Current client download is ~5MB. We are also sticking to the original GTA vehicles.

We've put a lot of effort into optimizing both server and client code. For example, our script is highly parallel so makes use of multi-core CPU's. Can you provide info on your current spec and what issues you encounter on MTA?
The current plan is to use default GTA V vehicles and handling since both the vehicles and the handling mimic real life vehicles.
The Owl staff/management teams will serve both V and MTA.

It would need to be a custom model/texture - the ones shown above are part of GTA 5. We are trying to avoid custom models/textures in V because due to the game being HD, they can run into the 100mb range each - we don't want a large download to play Owl.

The shield will be available to non-LE in very limited quantities via illegal arms routes. They will not be super common and you must RP them as if they do not say 'POLICE' on the front if you are not a LEO.